


Dead Bois

by dani_yup04



Category: Original Work
Genre: Best Friends, Deaf, Disability, Dyslexia, Hard of Hearing, Teenagers, Zombies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:01:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26840320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dani_yup04/pseuds/dani_yup04
Summary: A group of misfits. Handy, deaf in his left ear. Mary, dyslexic, and Crick (Sam) overweight and a messed up knee. Each one hungry for survival and solidarity- Friends from the very beginning until the end.





	Dead Bois

The air was full of past screams and wailing children.

Nothing was as it used to be as Handy led the trio through the trees, the stench of stale blood overpowering every other sense. 

"Handy, it looks like the car up ahead is new; there’s no dust on it. I'll go and check it out if you and Crick keep close behind me." 

His eyes roamed the skeletal land looking for the car of which she spoke. Finally, he turned to look at her.

"It looks relatively safe; nothing else around us other than the corpses, but they all look ages old. Dead Bois got'em a while ago-" pausing he switched to look at Crick, " I want to check out the trunk, so keep the screwdriver ready, man, we don't need another library incident."

Of course, back then, they were less experienced, and Mary had just given the dead bois a name, but Mrs. Kerpowski almost had a midnight snack.

Pushing aside the wall of tree limbs, Handy stepped out into the blistering heat, Crick and Mary following close behind. Without another word, Mary swept ahead foot after foot, quietly shuffling towards the red car.

The makeshift dagger in her hand had some weight to it. Closing her hand tightly around the metal, her foot stopped just short of crushing a teddy bears open stomach bending down to pick it up; her fingers fluttered across the remains of a tattered pink bow, there was nothing but scrapped out filling and a stain of rust. The bear was left out of mind when she was outside the car. Inside was clean, so she motioned over Handy and Crick. The only thing that seemed off was the cooler in the back seat, which was stuffed between the floor and the passenger seat at an angle. 

"Hey Handy, what's the chance of the car alarm going off?"

"Well, considering it's been about two years without a battery change and it got abandoned, I would say pretty much notta." 

Crick was on his knees, trying to wiggle the screwdriver into the keyhole, but all he managed to do so far was scratch the paint off. Getting frustrated, he stood up slowly, trying to keep his weight off of the messed-up knee. Walking towards the other side of the car, Crick wanted to open it up from the inside if accessible from the inside. There was no give to the door, so it opened quickly. Plopping down on the grimy seat cushion, he fiddled with the items trying to move them out of the way. The passenger door opened, and Mary clambered into the seat, shoving her knees into her chest. Handy hopped in over her, climbing into the backseat with Crick. 

"Hey! Wha-" 

Handy's gloved palm over his mouth cut him off, motioning behind him Crick's eyes landed on two dead bois. Their hands cuffed together, giving them little room to roam without the other pulling them in a different direction. His mouth was stiff as he placed his hand straight, lowering it. Crick understood the motion. It was one they used quite often. 'Get Low.’ His arms shook as he dropped his body to the floor. It was impossible to go all the way down as Handy did, but he was low enough for the dead bois not to see him. Mary smashed herself into a space underneath the passenger seat cans bending underneath her body. With all the car doors shut, the packed bodies were sweating. Trash heaped underneath them, and the cooler Mary had seen earlier rested on the seat from the earlier charades of Crick. 

Keeping her voice low, Mary shuffled out of the hideaway. "I think we should check what's in the cooler. It may help us." It was a long shot, but anything could help at the moment. 

Crick tapped on Handy's shoulder and pointing at the cooler, mouthing the same thing Mary did, just in case he hadn't caught all of it. Nodding in agreement, he inched upwards. His hands grasped firmly around the brick of weight. 

"There's liquid in it, guys, I don’t want to open it."

Crick let out a grunt as he wiggled his body, trying to maneuver out of the position he was stuck in. His trying was futile and only resulted in the car shaking. 

"Sam! Knock it off, or you’ll alert the bois." Mary left the code name behind this time. After all, there was no way anyone would hear except for them.

Turning to face Handy, Mary vocalized her frustration." It's probably melted ice, Handy, and it’s a cooler, a perfectly good liquid to be there."

With a slow sigh, he jammed his nails underneath the blue lid. It came off with ease. Placing it next to him, he glanced inside, the smell of the box filling the car immediately. Pulling his arm up to block the smell, he sifted whatever was in the box to the side. The contents were hard to make out, but he pulled a soaking wet cloth out. 

“That smells like gasoline, what are you holding?” 

The bodies that threw each other around the outside of the car had stopped, without warning, they crashed against it. Their nails clawed at the red paint. Handy had sunk to the floor, trying his best to stay calm. Reaching into the front seat, he grabbed Mary’s arm, tugging it to get her attention. He mimed, opening the glove box, and she caught on. It would’ve been hard not to. 

Pushing things aside, Mary found three old ketchup packets and a lighter. Pocketing the lighter, she turned back towards Handy, making sure he could see, she pointed towards the driver's side visor. Shrugging her shoulders, she looked out the window as if trying to hurry his decision. Handy had turned back towards sam to help him out of the cramped position, finally looking back at her, he nodded. Putting up three fingers, he counted down, all while Mary prepared herself to lunge and fall. When Handy hit one, she threw her body to the other seat, the car rocking violently. Her hands caught the seat cushion, but her momentum took her body and slammed it into the door. A groan snuck past her lips as her head smacked into the plastic. 

From the backseat, sam could see the dead bois pounding on the door Mary had just collided against. The only thing that separated them from chewing apart the residents of the car was a thin sliver of glass, which, at the moment, was rattling violently. 

Barely above a whisper, he asked Mary if she was injured. A groan was his answer. Looking at Handy, he contemplated the best way to escape, but unless one of the three had some magic act up their sleeve, the only way he could see this ending was with all three of them torn to shreds. He let his head fall back onto the cold plastic of the door, he sighed, catching Handy’s attention. 

“Keep their attention. I have a stupid idea.” 

Most of his ideas were pretty stupid, but this time, it was possibly the worst kind. Looking at the cooler Handy felt a small smile replace a lot of his worry. Mary was still holding her head in her hands but obliged to his request. Both her and Crick tapped on the windows teasing the rotten corpses. As delicately as he could, Handy lifted the sloshing box, The people who had owned this car, long before any of this even happened, had left a towel underneath the box, probably to keep the liquid from spilling, which was what it was doing now. Checking over his shoulder, he made sure that the dead bois were busy with Mary and Crick. Taking a deep breath, Handy threw open the door, sliding out as fast as possible with the cooler in his arms. He could hear the tapping became louder, trying to keep their attention. His steps were as large as he could make them, yet it still felt like the road would eat him up. The plan was stupid. They already knew it. They didn’t know the extent of it. Once he broke a car window and threw the contents inside, he would have virtually no way to get back to the pair. 

There was nothing in the world that could explain her fear, not now, not ever. She watched their jaws snap open and close. Crick was behind her, nearly rocking the car as he tried to get up further in the seats. Handy moved slowly and cautiously, but even with all the noise she and Crick were making, the attention was still drawn to Handy. Without thinking, her jaw mimicked theirs, but instead of insanely loud groans, she produced screams. 

His converse had finally carried him to his destination, a broken-down Chevy. Fiddling with the handle, he maneuvered the box into his other hand. Popping the door open, he set the blue box onto the seat. The floor had been covered with candy wrappers and cans, but a frayed edge of a blanket caught his eye. Leaning in a little further, he yanked it away from the sticky floorboard. Slamming the door shut, he heard Crick and Mary cease their tapping. Within a few minutes, he was down on his knees, trying to crawl between the cars without being seen. He could hear the handcuffs scratch against the cars he had passed, not two minutes earlier, as they stumbled to the liquid inside the box. Peeking his eyes over the trunk he was squatting next to, he could make out the dead bois tearing at the window he had shattered. Taking a deep breath, he popped up as quietly as he could, running past the red car he looked into the windows. Mary and Crick watched him before catching on and jumping out of the vehicle. 

~ ~ ~

Once again, they found themselves shuffling through dense leaves and dirt, pushing aside tree branches and stepping over rotten logs. 

“I’m hungry.” 

Crick looked at the backs of Mary and Handy, hoping that they would stop to eat lunch. 

“Sam, you know we have to ration our meals. We’ve already eaten our share today.”

Mary was as harsh as ever, but he knew she cared. 

“Plus, you need to try and lose weight. Running used to be good at, Sam, the doctors told you that you could still run after the knee healed. You just gave up on it.”

And with that, the group fell silent. Mary was smart. They could trust her judgment. Handy was in the lead cutting down vines and the occasional squishy crabapples; nothing they had said made it to him. He had his right ear facing the trees. Nothing much had happened yet, but before anything could, Handy stopped and knocked on the bark of an oak tree. With the day coming to a drawl, he could feel the shivers start, the holes in his jeans not helping much. Turning towards his friends, Handy pulled his pack off his shoulders. It was almost empty other than the blanket he had shoved in earlier. Throwing it to Mary, he zipped the bag back up, again tossing it over his shoulders. 

The woods were the most comfortable way of transportation, but they were also the most dangerous. They needed to get out before the dark swallowed them alive. It took him nearly three minutes to cut the thickets into shreds so all of them could make it through and onto the dusty road. The threat was still there, as it would always be, but it was less. They could bunk in a car for the night and search it in the morning; they had made some headway by doing that or the past couple of weeks, finding a stash of sugar here, maybe a couple of cigarettes they would split in half and chew. When Mary had told them about the effects of tobacco on parasites, they were skeptical, but it wasn’t like they would smoke them, so they waited until she popped it in her mouth and chewed. That was a few days ago, but it felt more like weeks at the rate the days were slugging by. 

Picking out a car that was deemed safe, they made themselves at home. Handy was in the driver's seat, and Crick was in the passenger. They both had the seats reclined back, and Crick had the windows cracked slightly. The roller is doing wonders for Sam at the moment. If it had been a newer car, it would have relied on the vehicle running. Then they definitely would have been screwed.

Having taken off her shoes, she propped them onto the seat. There wasn’t much room. But it would be her turn in driver tomorrow, her and Handy switched every night so that she couldn’t complain about that. She could complain at the smell of the car, though, and that’s exactly what she did.

“It reeks in here.” 

Handy looked up at her and laughed; he had come to expect that from her. It always brightened the mood. Sitting up, he leaned over Crick and opened the armrest shuffling inside of it with the last of the light. Finding nothing but sheets of paper, he sighed. Closing it back up, he returned to his ‘bed.’ 

“That was like a one-time thing, Handy, and you’ll never find another stash of junk food.” 

Sighing, he looked back at her. 

“I know it was still awesome, though.” 

Nodding her head, a wistful look crossed her face.

“Do you think this will ever end?”

Shrugging his shoulders, he picked at the roof,  catching all the dirt stains with his eyes. 

“It’s not like we have anything to go back to.”

“Yeah. But even so, it’s not like we’re the only remaining people on this planet. We could, like, build a camp or something.” 

Her checks screamed with heat. She wasn’t usually the one to talk like this. The car was comfortably warm, and the blanket hugged her body. Handy hadn’t moved his eyes from the roof since they had started talking. 

“Go to bed, Mary, you look tired.”

~~~


End file.
